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Search through all our worldwide HIV and AIDS news and features, using the topics below to filter your results by subjects including HIV treatment, transmission and prevention, and hepatitis and TB co-infections.

How HIV causes disease news

HIV can genetically evolve and independently replicate in patients' brains early in the illness process, an analysis of cerebral spinal fluid has found. Prompt diagnosis and treatment with antiretroviral therapy should reduce the risk that the virus could find refuge and cause damage in the brain, where some medications are less effective -- potentially enabling it to re-emerge, even after it is suppressed in the periphery, say researchers.

Biomarkers of inflammation increase during acute HIV infection and remain elevated despite early suppressive antiretroviral therapy, according to a study presented at CROI 2015, in Seattle, Washington.

The results confirmed the team's previous finding that the replicative capacity of the newly established virus drives how quickly infected individuals' levels of CD4 T cells declined. People infected with viruses with high replicative capacity had more signs of acute inflammation in the first few months of infection. Their T cells displayed more signs of "exhaustion," which sets the stage for faster disease progression.

Vaccines designed to protect against HIV can backfire and lead to increased rates of infection. This unfortunate effect has been seen in more than one vaccine clinical trial. Scientists at Yerkes National Primate Research Center, Emory University, have newly published results that support a straightforward explanation for the backfire effect: vaccination may increase the number of immune cells that serve as viral targets.

A new study has found that low- and high-frequency hearing is poorer in adults with the human immunodeficiency virus, compared with adults who do not have the disease. Although unexpected, similar hearing loss has previously been observed to be more likely in adults with diabetes mellitus. "It is possible that both HIV infection and diabetes, being systemic diseases, could affect the neural function of the cochlea," the authors suggest.

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